Definition of Zionism
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The word "Zionism" has several different meanings:

1. An ideology - Zionist ideology holds that the Jews are a people or
nation like any other, and should gather together in a single homeland. Zionism was self-consciously the Jewish analogue
of Italian and German national liberation movements of the nineteenth century. The term "Zionism" was apparently coined
in 1891 by the Austrian publicist Nathan Birnbaum, to describe the new ideology, but it was used retroactively to
describe earlier efforts and ideas to return the Jews to their homeland for whatever reasons, and it is applied to
Evangelical Christians who want people of the Jewish religion to return to Israel in order to hasten the second coming.
"Christian Zionism" is also used to describe any Christian support for Israel.

2. A descriptive term - The term "Zionism" was apparently coined
in 1891 by the Austrian publicist Nathan Birnbaum, to describe the new ideology. It is also used to describe
anyone who believes Jews should return to their ancient homeland.

3. A political movement - The Zionist movement was founded by
Theodor Herzl in 1897, incorporating the ideas of early thinkers as well as the organization built by

"Zionism" derives its name from "Zion," (pronounced "Tzyion" in
Hebrew) a hill in Jerusalem. The word means "marker" or commemoration. "Shivath Tzion" is one of the traditional
terms for the return of Jewish exiles. "Zionism" is not a monolithic ideological movement. It includes, for
example,
socialist Zionists such as
Ber Borochov,
religious Zionists such as rabbi Kook,
revisionist nationalists such as
Jabotinsky and
cultural Zionists exemplified by Asher Ginsberg (Achad Haam). Zionist ideas evolved over time and were
influenced by circumstances as well as by social and cultural movements popular in Europe at different times, including
socialism, nationalism and colonialism, and assumed different "flavors" depending on the country of origin of the
thinkers and prevalent contemporary intellectual currents. Accordingly, no single person, publication, quote or
pronouncement should be taken as embodying "official" Zionist ideology.

False beliefs about Zionism

A number of false beliefs and myths
have been circulated about Zionism - both by detractors and by supporters of the
movement:

Zionism and religion

- Zionism
is not a religious movement, and Israel is not the state of the Jewish religion.
The Jewish religious establishment was originally opposed to Zionism, and then
tried to take over or direct the movement. There are religious Zionists, who
have their own motivations for adhering to Zionism, and Zionism was certainly
meant to include religious Jews, but Herzl, Weizmann and other Zionist leaders
were not observant Jews and approached Zionism as a national problem, not as a
religious issue.

Zionism and Land - Several misconceptions about Zionism and land exist.
The first is that Zionism did not particularly aim to settle the "Holy Land"
(Palestine) and that Zionists were willing to settle in places such as East
Africa and Cyprus. The latter were considered for a time as temporary asylums in
order to alleviate the suffering of Russian Jews, but they were never accepted
as end goals for settlement by the Zionist movement. In order to further the
goal of settlement outside Palestine, Israel Zangwill left the Zionist movement
and founded the Territorial Zionist movement, a separate political and
ideological stream, that tried to secure a national home for the Jews in other
territories. Zangwill also became a champion of immigration to America and of
assimilation. Another myth is that Zionism aspires to extend the borders of
Israel throughout the Middle East. Zionists certainly wanted the largest
possible territory for the Jewish state, but the main goal was always to have a
national home for the Jewish people within the ancient territory of Israel and
Judea, and the Zionist movement accepted partition of the British mandate in
1922, a tiny truncated state offered in 1937 and the UN partition resolution of
1947. A peculiar claim of anti-Zionists offered as "proof" of "Zionist
expansionism" is the claim that Israel is the only country whose constitution
does not define its borders. Israel does not have a constitution, and many or
most constitutions do not define the borders of the state, as for example the
United States constitution. The Declaration of
Independence of the State of Israel does not declare its borders, but
neither does the United States declaration of Independence.

After Israel conquered the West Bank
in 1967, religious Zionists and the Greater Israel movement tried to claim that
settlement of the newly conquered lands in what the Jordanians called the West
Bank since 1945, and what was historically part of Judea and Samaria, was a
central goal of Zionism. But the fact is that even when there was an opportunity
for free purchase of land and settlement in the 1920s and 1930s, the Zionist
movement did not purchase much land in those areas. Of the territories taken by
Israel in 1967, only Jerusalem and perhaps Hebron have real national symbolic
significance.

Zionism and expulsion of the Arabs - Anti-Zionists have insisted that
Zionism plotted to expel the Arabs from Palestine. The claim has also been taken
up by right-wing Zionist extremists, who can document it with various statements
of leaders made at different times in favor of transfer of Arabs. It is true
that some Zionist leaders made statements in favor of voluntary transfer of
Arabs out of Palestine. There was no Zionist transfer policy however, except in
acquiescence to the British Peel plan, which called for voluntary transfer of
Arabs, and there was never an official Zionist policy or directive or order
calling for mass expulsion of Arabs by force as a general policy.
Plan Dalet (Plan D) issued in
1948, before Israeli independence, called for temporary expulsion of inhabitants
of areas where it was necessary to secure roads that communicated between Jewish
towns. This was necessitated by the road ambushes set up by Arab inhabitants in
those villages.

A land without a people for a people
without a land

- The myth that this is a major slogan of Zionism was propagated by Edward Said
(Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Times Books,
1979), p. 9)
and Rashid Khalidi (Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The
Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1997), p. 101.), and opponents of Zionism
insisted that it meant that Zionism assumed or taught its enthusiasts that no
people lived in Palestine. The slogan was coined by a Christian
Zionist,
a British advocate of the restoration of the Jews, Alexander Keith, who
wrote that the Jews are "a people without a country; even as their own
land, as subsequently to be shown, is in a great measure a country without a
people."
(Alexander Keith, The Land of Israel According to the Covenant with
Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob (Edinburgh: William Whyte and Co.,
1843). This was soon shortened to "a land without a people and a people without
a land" (The United Secession Magazine (Edinburgh), vol. 1, p. 189). The
phrase did not evidently mean to imply that there were no people living in
Palestine. The intent of the phrase was apparently that there was no nation or
nationalist entity other than the Jews who claimed Palestine as its homeland, as
the Arabs of Palestine identified themselves variously as Arabs, Syrians,
Nabulsi, Qudsi etc. and did not have a concept of Palestinian Arab nationhood or
any Palestinian national organizations at that time. That this was the intent is
shown by Lord Shaftesbury's version of the slogan, "There is a country without a
nation; and God now in his wisdom and mercy, directs us to a nation without a
country." (Shaftsbury, quoted in Albert Hyamson, "British Projects for the
Restoration of Jews to Palestine," American Jewish Historical Society
Publications, 1918, no. 26, p. 140).
Diane Muir reviews the extensive use of the phrase by Christian Zionists including the
American Blackstone, and its use in Jewish Zionism. Israel Zangwill is the first
prominent Zionist recorded to have used the phrase and probably the only one who
used it with serious intent in 1901 (Israel Zangwill, "The Return to Palestine,"
New Liberal Review, Dec. 1901, p. 615.). There was also apparently an
isolated use of the phrase in the American Zionist journal, The Maccabean in
1901 (Raphael Medoff, American Zionist Leaders and the Palestinian Arabs,
1898-1948 (Ph.D. diss., Yeshiva University, 1991), p. 17. ). By 1914,
Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann was referring to the phrase retrospectively (Paul
Goodman, Chaim Weizmann: A Tribute on His Seventieth Birthday (London: V.
Gollancz, 1945), p. 153) and other Zionists have since used the phrase
ironically, in view of the bitter struggle with the Arab inhabitants of
Palestine. It would probably be an exaggeration to conclude that "a land
without a people for a people without a land" was never a slogan of Zionism at
all, as most Jewish Zionists were familiar with it, but it was not a
particularly important slogan or part of any political action platform, and
Zionists certainly did not understand it to mean that there were no people in
Palestine.

Zionism and Judaism

- Opponents of Zionism and anti-Semites have sometimes identified all Jews as
"Zionists" and used the terms "Jew" and Zionist interchangeably. For example,
the Hamas charter
lays the blame for the French Revolution on "Zionists" - though there were no
Zionists in the 18th century. They clearly mean "Jews." Conversely, others have
claimed that Zionism is not, and was never, representative of views of the
majority of Jews. From its inception, Zionism enjoyed wide popular support,
particular in Eastern Europe and Russia. Most German Jews were probably not
Zionists, but Germany was the center of the Zionist movement for many years.
Jewish financiers and philanthropists, however, most of whom were Western
Europeans, were largely indifferent to Zionism and reluctant to finance
settlement in Palestine. In the United States, Zionism became popular
among Jews thanks to the leadership of
Justice
Louis Brandeis,
but most American Jews supported Zionism as a solution for other Jews. They
have been active Zionists in the sense of contributing money for settlement in
Palestine and Israel and offering political support, but not to the extent of
settling in Palestine or Israel themselves. A small minority of American Jews
remains actively and vocally anti-Zionist, and many profess indifference. Some
new groups, such as Brit Tsedek veshalom and J Street use the term "pro-Israel"
and avoid the words "Zionism" and "Zionist." Their motivation for avoiding the
word "Zionism" is not clear, since they claim to support Israel as the state of
the Jewish people, which is the heart of Zionist ideology. Some studies have
shown that "Zionism" and "Jew" have negative connotations even among Jews.

Background
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Zionism did not spring full blown from a void with the creation of the
Zionist movement in 1897. Jews had maintained a connection with Palestine, both actual and spiritual, even after the Bar
Kochba revolt in 135, when large numbers of Jews were exiled from Roman Palestine, the remains of their ancient
national home. The Jewish community in Palestine revived and, under Muslim rule, is estimated to have numbered as many
as 300,000 about 1000 AD, prior to the Crusades. The Crusaders killed most of the Jewish population of Palestine or
forced them into exile, so that only about 1,000 families remained after the reconquest of Palestine by Saladin. The
Jewish community in Palestine waxed and waned with the vicissitudes of conquest and economic hardship, and invitations
by different Turkish rulers to displaced European Jews to settle in Tiberias and Hebron. At different times there were
sizeable Jewish communities in Tiberias, Safed, Hebron and Jerusalem, and numbers of Jews living in Nablus and Gaza.
A few original Jews remained in the town of Peki'in, families that had lived there continuously since ancient times.

In the Diaspora, religion became the medium for preserving Jewish culture and
Jewish ties to their ancient land. Jews prayed several times a day for the rebuilding of the temple, celebrated
agricultural feasts and called for rain according to the seasons of ancient Israel, even in the farthest reaches of
Russia. The ritual plants of Sukkoth were imported from the Holy Land at great expense.

From time to time, small numbers of Jews came to settle in Palestine in
answer to rabbinical or messianic calls, or fleeing persecution in Europe. Beginning about 1700, groups of
followers led by rabbis reached Palestine from Europe and the Ottoman Empire with various programs. For example, Rabbi Yehuda Hehasid and his followers settled in Jerusalem about 1700, but the rabbi died suddenly, and eventually, an Arab
mob, angered over unpaid debts, destroyed the synagogue the group had built and banned all European (Ashkenazy) Jews
from Jerusalem. Rabbis Luzatto and Ben-Attar led a relatively large immigration about 1740. Other groups and individuals
came from Lithuania and Turkey and different countries in Eastern Europe.

At no time between the Roman exile and the rise of Zionism was there a
movement to settle the holy land that engaged the main body of European or Eastern Jews. The condition of Jews both
in Europe and Eastern countries made such a movement unimaginable. Many, however, were
attracted to various false Messiahs such as Shabetai Tzvi, who promised to restore Jews to their land. For most Jews,
the connection with the ancient homeland and with Jerusalem remained largely cultural and spiritual, and return to the
homeland was a hypothetical event that would occur with the coming of the Messiah at an unknown date in the far future.
European Jews lived, for the most part in ghettos. They did not get a general education, and did not generally
engage in practical trades that might prepare them for living in Palestine. Most of the communities founded by these
early settlers met with economic disaster, or were disbanded following earthquakes, anti-Jewish riots or outbreaks of disease. The
Jewish communities of Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron were typically destroyed by natural and man-made disasters
and repopulated several times, never supporting more than a few thousand persons each at their height. The Jews of
Palestine, numbering about 17,000 by the mid-19th century, lived primarily on charity - Halukka donations, with
only a very few engaging in crafts trade or productive work.

Proto-Zionism

Following the French Revolution and the emancipation of European
Jewry however, the vague spiritual bonds of the Jews to the "Holy Land" began to express themselves in more concrete,
though not always practical ways. About 1808, groups of Lithuanian Jews, followers of the Vilna Gaon (a famous rabbi and
opponent of Hassidism) arrived in Palestine and purchased land to begin an agricultural settlement. In 1836, Rabbi Zvi
Hirsch Kalischer petitioned Anschel Rothschild to buy Palestine or at least the Temple Mount for the Jews. In
1839-1840, Sir Moses Montefiore visited Palestine and negotiated with the Khedive of Egypt to allow Jewish settlement
and land purchase in Palestine. However, the negotiations led to nothing, possibly frustrated by the outbreak of an
anti-Semitic blood-libel in Damascus. Thereafter, Montefiore continued with less ambitious philanthropic schemes in
Palestine and in Argentina. In the 1840s,

Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer

British Zionism - The idea of a Jewish restoration also took
the fancy of British intellectuals for religious and practical reasons. It had been championed by Protestants since the
seventeenth century. The restoration was championed in the 1840s by
Lords Shaftesbury and Palmerston, who in addition to religious motivations, thought that a Jewish colony in
Palestine would help to stabilize and revive the country, Jewish national stirrings were also voiced by novelists
and writers such as Lord Byron, Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot and Walter Scott. (see also British Zionism
and off-site:

Role of Sephardic Jews - Through an accident of history,
European (Ashkenazy) Jews took the lead in organized Zionism for many years. However, Sephardic (Spanish) Jews and Jews
in Arab lands maintained a closer practical tie with the holy land and with the Hebrew language than did Ashkenazy Jews
and also influenced and participated in the the Zionist movement from its inception. Sarajevo-born Judah ben
Solomon Hai Alkalai(1798-1878,) is considered one of the major precursors of modern Zionism. Alkalai believed that
return to the land of lsrael was a precondition for the redemption of the Jewish people. Alkalai's ideas greatly
influenced his Ashkenazy contemporary,
Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Kalischer. Alkalai was also a friend of the
grandfather of Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Another Sephardi Jew, David Alkalai, a
grand-nephew of Judah Alkalai, founded and led the Zionist movement in Serbia and Yugoslavia., and attended the first
Zionist Congress in Basel (1897).

Rabbi Solomon Hai Alkalai

Early Zionists

The modern formulation of Zionism was at least partly divorced from religious aspirations.
The rise of modern nation states and the 18th and 19th century enlightenment and
emancipation movements allowed the Jews to leave the ghettos of Europe for the first time,
catalyzing a host of changes in Jewish society and culture, many of which were
expressed in the
Haskalah movement.
While the Haskalah
movement in Germany promoted assimilation,
Haskalah in Germany
and later in Russia also set in motion a number of processes that would
ultimately make possible a Jewish national movement, including the study of
Hebrew as a secular language, the creation of a Hebrew press and literature, the
creation of a Jewish cultural life outside the framework of rabbinical and
religious Judaism, and the movement to bring Jews into "productive" occupations
and agriculture.

Some Jews converted to
Christianity and assimilated to surrounding society. Others, exposed to a general education, dropped their religious
beliefs, but considered themselves Jews, and understood that others still considered them to be Jews. This suggested a conundrum. If one
could be a non-believer and still be a Jew, then "Jew" must be more than just the name of a religion. German racists
solved this conundrum by inventing a racial theory, which lacked any real scientific basis. Socialists cited the
aberrant class structure of Jewish society and labeled Jews a "caste." Zionists solved the conundrum by declaring that
Jews are a people, a fact implicit and explicit in the Jewish biblical and cultural concept of "t;am Yisrael." The Jews
were a people without a country however, and would remain politically powerless as long as they did not have a national
home. They would be guests everywhere and at home nowhere, according to Zionist ideology. This homelessness was the
cause of the "Jewish Problem," and it could not fail to be exacerbated by the rise of nationalism and nations in the
19th century. This explained why, paradoxically, anti-Jewish sentiment might become more pronounced in "enlightened"
Europe than it had been in previous centuries, when nationalism had been less pronounced.

national
movement
similar to the Italian risorgimento nationalist movement. These and similar sentiments were adopted by numerous
small groups that formed primarily in Eastern Europe, but also in Britain and in the United States.

The "first aliya" - The first groups of immigrants who came to the
land of Israel (it had no official name in the Ottoman Empire) with the idea of turning the land into a national home for the Jews are known as the "first Aliya." "Aliya"
literally means "going up" and it is a term Jews have used for a long time for coming to the holy land. Beginning in
the 1870s, religious and nonreligious Jews established several study groups and societies for purchasing land in
Palestine and settling there. In 1870 the Alliance Israelite, an ostensibly non-Zionist organization, founded the Miqveh Yisraelagricultural school near Beit Dagan.

In 1882, the BILU (an acronym for "Beyt
Ya'akov Lechu Venelcha" - House of Jacob let us go) and Hibbat Tziyon (love of Zion) groups were
established. They were inspired by the impetus of the wave of anti-Jewish violence that had swept Russia in 1881. Hibbat
Tziyion began as a network of independent underground groups. These and similar groups established a number of early
Jewish settlements including Yesod Hamaalah, Rosh Pinna, Gedera, Rishon Le Tziyon, Nes Tziyonna and Rehovot on
land purchased from Arab owners with the aid of Jewish philanthropists, chiefly Lord Rothschild. Joel Solomon led a
group of orthodox Jews out of Jerusalem to found Petah Tikva in 1878.

Petah Tiqva

The settlements were characteristically vineyards and orange orchards. The
settlers were mostly religious Jews at least nominally, though the religious Jewish establishment frowned on Zionism. In 1882, 150
Yemenite Jews also found their way to Palestine. The first Aliya numbered about 25,000
persons, primarily from Eastern Europe. Many of them returned home defeated by disease, poverty and unemployment.

Revival of Hebrew - Among the first arrivals of the first Aliya was
Eliezer ben Yehuda (Perelman). Inspired by European, particularly Bulgarian nationalism, Ben Yehuda was moved to settle
in Palestine. He arrived in 1881 and undertook to revive the Hebrew language. With the help of Nissim Bechar, principal
of a school operated by the Alliance Israelite Universelle, Ben Yehuda began teaching Hebrew. Later he founded and
published the Hatzvi newspaper, and set up a linguistic council. Ben Yehuda's work was the major force in the
revival of Hebrew as a modern language.

Leon Pinsker and Hovevei Tziyon - Inspired by the anti-Semitic
violence in Russia,
Leon Pinsker formulated the modern idea of Zionism in a small pamphlet called
Auto-Emancipation, published in 1882. Pinsker believed that anti-Semitism was
inevitable as long as Jews were guests in every country and at home nowhere, and wrote that the Jews' only salvation lay
in liberating themselves and settling in their own country. Pinsker favored Argentina or other countries as sites for
the Jewish homeland. However, Western Jews who might have favored this idea rebuffed him. In his native Russia, however,
his ideas were well received, but they were channeled to settlement in Palestine. In 1882, Pinsker was made head of the
Hovevei Tzion organization, which united many small and scattered groups, primarily in Russia, into a single
organization. Pinsker favored "political Zionism," that is, organization of Jews in Europe and petitioning the great
powers for land on which to establish a national home. However, his efforts in this direction were rebuffed by the
Russian government. Instead, he directed his energies to the gradual purchase of land and settlement of small groups in
Palestine.

Early settlers faced innumerable cultural and
economic difficulties. In 1800, the ravages of misadministration and war had reduced the population to about
200,000. By the 1880s, the land had recovered somewhat, but it was still poor and disease ridden. The total population
was about 450,00. Jerusalem was a small town of 25,000 inhabitants, slightly more than half Jewish. The first
settlement of Petah Tikva in 1878 failed and was later refounded. The Ottoman government barely tolerated the settlers,
especially those who retained their foreign nationality, and occasionally the government restricted immigration.
Settlers who adopted Ottoman nationality were liable for the Turkish draft. Disease, poverty and unemployment caused
many to leave.

Early Jewish Settlers

Theodore Herzl and the Foundation of the Zionist Movement

The Dreyfus Affair,
in which a Jewish officer of the French army was falsely convicted of treason in 1894, initiated waves of anti-Semitism
in the French press and in the street. It cast doubt on the notion that Jews could achieve acceptance in modern liberal
democracies, and made Western
European Jews conscious of their national identity. In particular, it affected a young Vienna journalist,
Theodor Herzl . His pamphlet
Der Judenstaat,
The Jewish State,
was published in 1896. Herzl's plan for creating a Jewish State, arrived at after contemplating other solutions as
well, provided the practical program of Zionism, and led to the first Zionist Congress in
Basle, Switzerland, in August, 1897.

After the first Basle Congress, Herzl wrote in his diary, “Were I to sum
up the Basle Congress in a word- which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly- it would be this: ‘At Basle, I
founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. If not in 5 years,
certainly in 50, everyone will know it.’”

Theodor Herzl

There had been lesser Zionist political gatherings with the same aims in the
years just prior to the Zionist Congress, but they did not attract the attention that Herzl's congress did, and were
largely forgotten. The Basle congress marked the foundation of Zionism as a world political movement.

In 1902, Herzl published a utopian novel to popularize the Jewish
state, Altneuland, (old-new land) a vision complete with monorails and modern industry. The novel concludes, "If
you will, it is no legend."

Herzl thought that diplomatic activity would be the main method for getting
the Jewish homeland. He called for the organized transfer of Jewish communities to the new state. Of the location of the
state, Herzl said, "We shall take what is given us, and what is selected by public opinion."

Herzl attempted to gain a charter from the Sultan of Turkey for the
establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. To this end he met in 1898 with the
German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, in Istanbul and Palestine, as well as the Sultan, but these meetings did not bear fruit.

Herzl negotiated with the British regarding the possibility of settling the
Jews on the island of Cyprus, the Sinai Peninsula, the El Arish region and Uganda. After the Kishinev pogroms, Herzl
visited Russia in July 1903. He tried to persuade the Russian government to help the Zionists transfer Jews from Russia
to Palestine. At the Sixth Zionist Congress Herzl proposed settlement in Uganda, on offer from the British, as a
temporary "night refuge." The idea met with sharp opposition, especially from the same Russian Jews that Herzl had
thought to help. Though the congress passed the plan as a gesture of esteem for Herzl, it was not pursued seriously, and
the initiative died after the plan was withdrawn. In his quest for a political solution, Herzl met with the king of
Italy, who was encouraging, and with the Pope, who expressed opposition. A small group, the Jewish Territorial Organization ("Territorial Zionists") led by Israel Zangwill, split with the Zionist movement in 1905, and attempted to
establish a Jewish homeland wherever possible. The organization was dissolved in 1925.

The insistence of Eastern European Jews on Palestine as the Jewish homeland,
coupled with the failure of alternatives, maintained the focus of the Zionist movement on Palestine.

The Second Aliyah and Socialist Zionism

The "political Zionism" approach originally tried by Montefiore, Pinsker and
Herzl, which attempted to obtain a Jewish homeland from colonial powers, failed to attain results at least initially.
Meanwhile, however, practical settlement efforts gradually increased the Jewish population of Palestine from about
25,000 in 1882 to approximately 85,000 to 100,000 just prior to World War I.

A fresh wave of anti-Semitic pogroms
in Russia provided the impetus for a second wave of immigration, beginning about 1904 and called the Second
Aliyah. At the same time, the rise socialist - Zionist stirrings had inspired several socialist Zionist movements.
Thousands of new immigrants dedicated to the conquest of labor ethic and socialist ideals arrived in Palestine. Their
Zionism was typified by the thinking of men like Ber Borochov andA.D. Gordon,.Hapoel Hatzair, ("The young
worker") was founded by A.D. Gordon, Poalei Tziyon("workers of Zion") , and later Hashomer Hatzair
("the young guard) were inspired by Ber Borochov. Borochov, an ideologue of the Poalei Tziyon movement, did
not cite anti-Semitism as the basis or motivation of Zionism. According to him, the Diaspora produced aberrant social
conditions that made Jews economically inferior and politically helpless. The normal organization of society was a
pyramid, according to Borochov, with a large body of workers and smaller groups of intelligentsia, land owners and
capitalists. The Diaspora had created an 'inverted pyramid' in Jewish society, with no Jewish peasant or
worker class. Self-liberation of the Jews would come about by proletarianization of the Jews in their homeland, and the
nascent Jewish proletariat would join the socialist international. Similarly, A.D. Gordon, inspired by 19th
century romanticism, called for a Jewish return to the soil and virtually made a religion of work. These ideas fused
into the ideals of "productivization" (returning the Jews, who engaged mostly in professional and mercantile trades, to
productive labor) and "conquest of labor" (Kibbush Haavoda). "Conquest of labor" later took on additional
meanings. (See also
Labor Zionism and Socialist Zionism )

The new immigrants arrived with the ideals of socialist
Zionism, but reality was not favorable to implementing those ideas. The Zionist movement attempted to find them work.
but the new immigrants , who had no training in agriculture and poor physical stamina, were unable to compete with Arab
peasants. Arabs certainly would not hire Jewish workers, who could not work well and could not speak Arabic. Arab
labor was also preferred by the plantation and vineyard owners of the first Aliya. Arabs were experienced and hard
workers, and were able to work for much lower wages because they were often members of an extended family that made its
main income from sharecropping. The plantation owners had also developed a superior colonialist mentality which suited
the hiring of "natives," and clashed with the egalitarian ideas and social demands of the newly arrived socialists.

The socialist Zionist movements tried to force plantation
owners to grant higher wages, and also began to insist that plantation owners hire only Jewish workers. This aspect of
"conquest of labor" was controversial within the socialist-Zionist movements because it engendered lack of solidarity
with the Arab working class and was discriminatory. One labor Zionist leader wrote:

"How can Jews, who demand emancipation in Russia, rob
rights and act selfishly toward other workers upon coming to Eretz Israel? If it is possible for many a people to hide
fairness and justice behind cannon smoke, how and behind what shall we hide fairness and justice? We should
absolutely not deceive ourselves with terrible visions. We shall never possess cannons, even if the goyim shall
bear arms against one another for ever. Therefore, we cannot but settle in our land fairly and justly, to live and let
live. "(Meir Dizengoff (writing as "Dromi") "The Workers Question," Hatzvi, September 21, 22, 1909)

At the same time, Conquest of Labor was a central part of
Labor Zionist ideology, as a means of rebuilding the Jewish people, not a discriminatory ideology. A.D. Gordon wrote:

But labour is the only force which binds man to the soil…
it is the basic energy for the creation of national culture. This is what we do not have, but we are not aware of
missing it. We are a people without a country, without a national living language, without a national culture. We seem
to think that if we have no labour it does not matter - let Ivan, John or Mustafa do the work, while we busy ourselves
with producing a culture, with creating national values and with enthroning absolute justice in the world.

(A.D. Gordon, "Our Tasks Ahead" 1920)

The boycott of Arab labor, only partly successful, was
carried out reluctantly as a matter of necessity, and because the establishment of Jews as a class of colonial
plantation owners seemed worse than the alternative. The discriminatory program of "conquest of labor" also
provoked bitterness among some Arabs, particularly watchmen who lost their jobs to Jews. In the main however, the
"conquest of labor" movement was initially unsuccessful, nor could it have much real influence on the economic prospects of
Arabs. Only a few thousand Jewish workers were involved. Gershon Shafir (Land, Labor and the Origins of the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882–1914, University of California Press, 1996) estimates that about 10,000 such
workers passed through Palestine in the second Aliya, many leaving in discouragement. Other sources claim there
were about 3,000 workers out of approximately 33,000 who came to Palestine in the second Aliya. Because of the
wage differential and because of the expertise of Arab workers, Arab labor continued to find employment in Jewish
settlements. It was only with the massive Jewish immigration of the 1930s, coupled with Arab unrest and sabotage
attempts, that Jewish workers began to replace Arab workers in most of the Jewish economy. Of course, few Jews worked in
the Arab economy.

The kibbutz collective settlements were started as a
practical method of settling Jewish laborers on the land and overcoming the preferences of plantation owners for Arab
labor. A small group of Jewish immigrants was settled in an economic cooperative in Sejera, later founding Kibbutz
Degania in 1909. The arrangement, originally thought to be temporary, proved to be practical, as well as suited to the
socialist ideals of the new settlers and the practical requirements of Zionism. It soon inspired several other kibbutzim (collective farms). The kibbutz
movement was to become the backbone of Labor Zionism
in Palestine, and eventually provided political and military leadership. Kibbutzim provided ideal places for hiding arms
from the British and recruiting and training troops, as well as for organizing local defense and guarding borders.

The Zionist movement did not give up efforts
to find a political solution. The political Zionism and practical settlement approaches were merged into "Synthetic
Zionism" advocated by Chaim Weizmann. The efforts ultimately bore fruit in the Balfour Declaration,
a promise by Britain to further efforts for a Jewish national home in Palestine. and in the League of Nations Mandate,which give international sanction to the Jewish national home. Weizmann became head of the Zionist organization and
later was the first President of Israel.

Chaim Weizman

Zionism and
the Arabs

When Zionism had its first beginnings, in the early 19th century, there were
about 200,000 Arabs living between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean in the approximate area that later became
"Palestine," mostly concentrated in the countryside of the West Bank and Galilee, and
mostly lacking in national sentiment. Palestine was, in Western eyes, a country without a nation, as Lord
Shaftesbury wrote. Early proto-Zionists did not trouble themselves at all about the existing inhabitants. Many were
heavy influenced by utopianism. In the best 19th century tradition, they were creating a Jewish utopia, where an ancient
people would be revived. They envisioned a land without strife, where all national and economic problems would be solved
by good will, enlightened and progressive policies and technological know-how. Herzl's Altneuland was in in
fact just such a utopia. In the novel, Herzl envisioned a modern pluralistic society, in which Jews and Arabs had equal
rights. A demagogic politician who wanted to form a narrow hyper-nationalist Jewish state, was defeated in elections.

In reality, Jewish population grew, but Arab population grew more rapidly. By 1914, there were
over 500,000 Arabs in Palestine, but only about 80,000 to 100,000 Jews. Arab opposition to Jewish settlement grew as
Arabs perceived that the Zionist goal was more than just a myth, and as they increasingly identified Zionism with
British interests in the Middle East.

At the same time, early Zionist pronouncements and outlook were often frankly
colonialist, especially when addressing leaders of foreign powers. The plantations sponsored by Baron Rothschild were
modeled on plantation settlement in Algeria and other colonies. Colonialism was fashionable and "progressive," and
some early
Zionist leaders saw nothing wrong in assimilating this idea to Zionism along with other modern ideas such as socialism,
utopianism and nationalism.

Later Zionists were heavily influenced by socialism and embarrassed at
the colonialist aspects of the Zionist project. They were also aware, of course, that Palestine was already occupied by
Arabs. Many however, including the young
David Ben-Gurion, who headed the Executive committee of the Zionist Yishuv
(Jewish community) in Palestine and was later the first Prime Minister of Israel, initially thought that the Arabs could
only benefit from Jewish immigration and would welcome it. Others, such as Eliezer ben Yehuda, frankly envisioned
removal of the Arabs from Palestine.

One of the earliest warnings about the Arab problem came from the Zionist
writer Ahad Ha'am (Asher Ginsberg), who wrote in his 1891 essay "Truth from Eretz Israel" that in Palestine "it is hard
to find tillable land that is not already tilled", and moreover:

From abroad we are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all desert savages, like donkeys, who neither see nor
understand what goes on around them. But this is a big mistake... The Arabs, and especially those in the cities,
understand our deeds and our desires in Eretz Israel, but they keep quiet and pretend not to understand, since they do
not see our present activities as a threat to their future... However, if the time comes when the life of our people in
Eretz Israel develops to the point of encroaching upon the native population, they will not easily yield their place.

Ahad Ha'am, believed that the Jews would need to first build a strong Jewish
culture abroad, and that this culture and awareness would then make the dream of a Jewish homeland possible. The Jewish
community in Palestine, he felt should be a cultural center for Jews of the Diaspora, that would catalyze this
revolution in Jewish life and eventually bring about mass Jewish support for the Zionist project. Contrary to the
impression that some modern interpretations give, Ahad Ha'am was not anti-Zionist and was not an opponent of the
formation of a Jewish national home. In fact, he was an enthusiastic supporter
of Zionism. Hed wrote an article
eulogizing
Leon Pinsker in glowing terms and he emigrated to Palestine and lived in Tel Aviv.

Arab opposition to Zionism grew after 1900. The birth of Arab nationalism and
Arab political aspirations in the Ottoman empire coincided with the arrival of fairly sizeable number of Zionists with
the announced program of settling the land and turning it into a Jewish national home. In his book, Reveil de la
Nation Arab in 1905, Najib Azouri stated that the Jews want to establish a state stretching from Mt Hermon to the
Arabian Desert and the Suez Canal. Azoury wrote:

Two important phenomena of the same nature but opposed, are emerging... They
are the awakening of the Arab nation and the latent effort of the Jews to reconstitute on a very large scale the ancient
kingdom of Israel. These movements are destined to fight each other continually until one of them wins.

(Mandel, Neville, The Arabs
and Palestine, UCLA, 1976)

Rashid Khalidi (Palestinian Identity, Columbia, 1997) notes that beginning
about 1908 Palestinian newspapers offered extensive evidence of anti-Zionist agitation. Actual conflicts flared up because
the Zionists purchased large tracts from landowners and subsequently evicted the tenant farmers. The former tenants,
though they had received some compensation, continued to insist that the land was theirs under time honored traditions
and tried to take it back by force. A notable case was Al-Fula, where Zionists had purchased a large tract of land from
the Sursuq family of Beirut. Local officials took the side of the Arab peasants against the Zionists and against the
Ottoman government, which upheld the legality of the sale. 150 Palestinian notables cabled the Ottoman government to
protest land sales to Jews in March 1911. Azmi Bey, Turkish governor of Jerusalem responded:

We are not xenophobes; we welcome all strangers. We are not anti-Semites; we
value the economic superiority of the Jews. But no nation, no government, could open its arms to groups... aiming to
take Palestine from us.

(Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, Knopf 1999 Page 62)

Likewise, the "conquest of labor" movement displaced some Arab watchmen
and led to violence. While the actual number of persons displaced or dispossessed may have been small, and may have been
offset by real economic benefits and increased employment provided by Zionist investment, the feeling grew among the
Arabs that the Zionists had arrived to dispossess them. A Nazareth group complained that the Zionists were "a cause
of great political and economic injury... The Zionists nourish the intention of expropriating our properties. For us
these intentions are a question of life and death." (Morris, loc cit.) As the conflict
intensified, the Zionists formed a guard association, Hashomer, to guard the settlements in place of Arab guards.
The attempts to retake land and disputes with Jewish guards led to increased violence beginning in the second half of
1911.
ry zionism * history

Following World War I, Palestine came under British rule. Even before they
had conquered Palestine from the Ottoman Turkish Empire, owing to the efforts of Zionists, the British government
declared its intentions, in the Balfour declaration, of sponsoring
a "national home" for the Jews in Palestine. Britain was given a League of Nations
Mandate to develop Palestine as a Jewish National home. The Arabs of
Palestine were appalled at the prospect of living in a country dominated by a Jewish majority and feared that they would
be dispossessed. Anti-Jewish rioting and violence broke out in 1920 and 1921. By this time, Zionist leaders could
no longer ignore the conflict with the Arabs. By 1919, representatives of the Jaffa Muslim-Christian council were saying

"We will push the Zionists into the sea or they will push us into the desert"

(Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, Knopf 1999 Page 91)

Arab opposition to Zionism was not based only on economic and social issues.
It was colored by the traditional Muslim vision of the Jews as second class citizens. By the 1920s, it was also
motivated by a strong admixture of Western anti-Semitism. In 1920, Musa Kazim El Husseini, deposed as Mayor of
Jerusalem because of his part in riots earlier that year, told Winston Churchill:

The Jews have been amongst the most active advocates of destruction in many
lands... It is well known that the disintegration of Russia was wholly or in great part brought about by the Jews, and a
large proportion of the defeat of Germany and Austria must also be put at their door.

(Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, Knopf 1999 Page 99)

It is not clear how Churchill received this amazing and unwitting testimonial
to the aid proffered to his country's war effort by the Jews, or what Husseini thought to accomplish by it. Aref Dajani
had earlier voiced similar sentiments to the King- Crane Commission

It is impossible for us to make an understanding with them or or even to live
with them... Their history and all their past proves that it is impossible to live with them. In all the countries where
they are at present they are not wanted... because they always arrive to suck the blood of everybody...

(Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, Knopf 1999 Page 91)

While Palestinian Arabs viewed themselves as a small group of helpless
victims of powerful British and Jewish "interests," the Zionists saw the opposite side of the coin. The militant Zionist
leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, asked in 1918:

The matter is not ... an issue between the Jewish people and the Arab
inhabitants of Palestine, but between the Jewish people and the Arab people. The latter, numbering 25 million, has
[territory equivalent to] half of Europe, while the Jewish people, numbering ten million and wandering the earth, hasn't
got a stone...Will the Arab people stand opposed? Will it resist? [Will it insist] that...they...shall have it [all] for
ever and ever, while he who has nothing shall forever have nothing?

Soon after World War I, Zionist leaders clearly recognized the problem. David
Ben Gurion told members of the Va'ad Yishuv (the temporary governing body of the Jewish community in Palestine) in June
1919:

But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question. No
solution! There is a gulf; and nothing can bridge it.... I do not know what Arab will agree that Palestine should belong
to the Jews...We. as a nation,. want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs.

(Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, Knopf 1999 Page 91)

In 1923, in his Iron Wall
article, Jabotinsky replied to his own question. He
asserted that agreement with the Arabs was impossible, because they:

...look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any
Sioux looked upon his prairie. To think that the Arabs will voluntarily consent to the realization of Zionism in return
for the cultural and economic benefits we can bestow on them is infantile.

Jabotinsky, was initially against expulsion of the Arabs, which he was
"prepared to swear, for us and our descendants, that we will never [do]". Rather in
The Iron Wall, he claimed that the
Jewish presence should be imposed by a strong defense that would show the Arabs that the Jews could
not be forced out of Palestine. However, while The
Iron Wall expressed a comprehensive philosophy, its practical background and intent were much more limited.
Jabotinsky wanted the British authorities to allow the Jews to form a separate defensive force under British
supervision, to combat attacks such as the riots that had occurred in 1920 and 1921. The British refused, and the
Zionist organization resigned themselves to the British decision, but Jabotinsky wanted to continue with the formation
of such a force. Though the
Haganah defensive underground was founded in 1920 by Jabotinsky, it didn't become a major
project of the Zionist movement until after the riots of 1929.
These riots, and not any intrinsic aspect of Zionist ideology, were the real trigger for the birth of militant
Zionism as a political force, as well as the progressively more important role played by self-defense and military
prowess in Zionist thought, action and society.

Meanwhile the Arab and Jewish communities grew progressively apart. Arabs
refused to participate in a Palestinian local government which gave equal representation to the Jewish minority. The
British, nearly bankrupt after WW I, insisted that the mandate should be self-sufficient. Mandate services were
paid for from taxes paid by the Jewish and Arab inhabitants of Palestine. Additional services were funded by
philanthropists from abroad and from membership dues in various organizations. Zionist philanthropy and organization
far-outstripped what Palestinian Arabs could provide. Neither Arabs nor Jews wanted integrated schools. Zionist
groups funded religious, secular and labor-Zionist educational networks for Jewish children in Hebrew, but few
comparable schools were set up for Arabs. The Zionists founded the Histadruth Labor federation to encompass Jewish
workers, providing Hebrew education, medical care, worker-owned enterprises and cultural facilities as well as
representation of labor rights. No comparable association was created by the more numerous Arabs of Palestine, though
the Histadruth made some efforts to organize Arab labor beginning in 1927, and the Palestine Communist party attempted
to represent both Jewish and Arab labor.

As the conflict unfolded, attitudes hardened on both sides. Some Zionist
factions called for expulsion or "transfer" of Arabs "voluntarily" or otherwise. Beginning with the Husseini clan led by
Hajj Amin El Husseini, the Grand Mufti, different factions of Palestinian Arabs, successively allied themselves with
Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and, after WW II with communist countries. Arab rhetoric became increasingly
colored by European anti-Semitism, and adopted many of the claims and ideas of Holocaust deniers such as Roger Garaudy
as well as the anti-Zionist ideology of radical Jewish intellectuals.

The conflict was intensified and complicated by the 1948 war. About 700,000
Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled during the war, and Israel did not allow them to return. Many
Palestinian
refugees were settled in camps under miserable conditions, where they have remained for several generations. The
Israeli point of view had in mind the recent convulsions of World War II, and the exchange of populations that occurred
when India and Pakistan were created. Most Israelis believed the Palestinians became refugees through their own fault.
Their exile was the result of the war which the Palestinians themselves had started by rejection of the UN
partition plan, just as, for example, the Germans of Sudetensland, who helped instigate the German occupation of
Czechoslovakia, were eventually banished as the result of their own mischief. For the Arabs of Palestine, their Nakba,
or catastrophe, vindicated their fears that the Zionists were bent on dispossessing them.

Zionism and the Conflict With Britain

The British government increasingly understood that its promises to the
Zionists and Mandate obligations were very unpopular in the Arab world. They split off a large part of the Palestine
Mandate territory to form Transjordan and issued the Passfield White
Paper that proposed limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine. The Passfield White Paper was quietly
withdrawn under pressure from Zionists, from British public opinion and from the League of Nations. However, the British
eventually did impose a limit on immigration. These policies turned the once-friendly British into antagonists of the
Zionist movement. Labor Zionists and the Zionist Executive were in favor of moderate policies that would try to work
around the British opposition to Zionism. A faction led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky believed in confronting the British and the
Arabs, and if necessary, using force. In 1923, Jabotinsky split from the main Zionist movement and formed the
Revisionist movement. In 1925, an Arab Revolt (The Great Uprising)
broke out in Palestine, triggered by rising Jewish immigration and systematic agitation by extremists. In
1937, the British proposed tentatively to partition Palestine in the
Peel report. This caused additional divisions in the Zionist movement. Some believed in a bi-national Jewish Arab
state and objected to the idea, contained in the Peel recommendations, of transferring Arabs "voluntarily" out of the
territory to be allotted to the Jewish state. The revisionists and religious Zionists, on the other hand, objected to
giving up any part of the territory of Palestine. Subsequently the British issued the
White Paper of 1939, severely limiting Jewish immigration. The Arab
revolt and the reaction to it crystallized the Zionist ethos of self-defense and emphasis on military service. The
Revisionists formed the Irgun underground army, which attacked British soldiers and administrators and perpetrated
terror attacks against Arabs in retaliation for Arab attacks on Jews. Atrocities committed by the Arabs, as well as
counter-terror by Jewish groups, inculcated in both Jews and Arabs the idea that any means at all may be used against
the enemy, even though the Hagannah officially maintained a military ethic of "purity of arms" - forbidding needless
violence. The Arab revolt and the Peel report also legitimized, to some extent, the idea of "transfer," and solidified
and entrenched the idea that conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine was inevitable.

The Zionists, attempting to rescue Jews from the Nazis, organized illegal
immigration. The Revisionist Zionist movement began to organize immigration, both legal (with certificates) and illegal,
in 1937, from Austria, and later from the free city of Danzig. At least 20,000 Jews were saved in this way. The Jewish
agency opposed illegal immigration until the promulgation of the British White Paper of 1939, which stopped Jewish
immigration. Thereafter, they founded and supported the
Mossad l'aliya
Bet ("B immigration institution") to bring immigrants from abroad. This operated between 1939 and 1942, when a tightened British blockade and stricter controls in occupied Europe made it impractical,
and again between 1945 and 1948. Rickety boats full of refugees tried to
reach Palestine. Additionally, there were private initiatives, an initiative by the Nazis to deport Jews and an
initiative by the US to save European Jews. Many of the ships sank or were caught by the British or the Nazis and
turned back, or shipped to Mauritius or other destinations for internment.
The Patria (also called "Patra")
contained immigrants offloaded from three other ships, for transshipment to the island of Mauritius. To prevent transshipment, the
Haganah placed a small explosive charge on the ship on November 25, 1940. They thought the charge would damage the engines.
Instead, the ship sank, and over 250 lives were lost.
A few weeks later, the SS Bulgaria docked in Haifa
with 350 Jewish refugees and was ordered to return to Bulgaria. The Bulgaria capsized in the Turkish straits, killing
280. The
Struma, a vessel that had left Constanta in Rumania with
about 769 refugees, got to Istanbul on December 16, 1941.
There, it was forced to undergo repairs of its engine and leaking hull. The Turks would not grant the refugees
sanctuary. The British would not approve transshipment to Mauritius or entry to Palestine. On February 24, 1942, the
Turks ordered the Struma out of the harbor. It sank with the loss of 428 men, 269 women and 70 children. Apparently, it
had been torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, either because it was mistaken for a Nazi ship, or more likely, because the
Soviets had agreed to collaborate with the British in barring Jewish immigration.
Illegal immigration continued until late in the war, apparently without the participation of the
Mossad l'aliya
Bet. The illegal immigrant Mefkure, organized with the help of the United States government, was sunk by a Soviet
submarine in 1944.
Despite the many setbacks, tens of
thousands of Jews were saved by the illegal immigration.

To circumvent British regulations against creating new settlements, the
Zionists initiated the "stockade and tower" ("homa umigdal") program, that allowed overnight creation of a new
"settlement," consisting of a wall and watch tower. Under the law, the British could not destroy such an 'established'
settlement.

Reports of Nazi atrocities became increasingly frequent and vivid. Despite
the desperate need to find a haven for refugees, the doors of Palestine remained shut to Jewish immigration. The Zionist
leadership met in the Biltmore Hotel in New York City in 1942 and declared that it
supported the establishment of Palestine as a "Jewish Commonwealth." This was not simply a return to the Balfour
declaration repudiated by the British White Paper, but rather a restatement of Zionist aims that
went beyond the Balfour declaration, and a determination that the British were in principle, an enemy to be fought,
rather than an ally. This was a defeat for the left-wing party of the Labor Zionists, Mapam, who wanted a bi-national
Zionist state, and for Chaim Weizmann, who opposed confrontation with the British and favored partition. The
Revisionists rejoined the Zionist movement, but were still called "dissidents" and did not merge their underground
armies, the Irgun and the Lehi (also called the "Stern Gang") into the Hagannah defense organization of the mainstream
Zionists.

On November 6, 1944, members of the Lehi underground
Eliyahu Hakim and
Eliyahu Bet Zuri assassinated Lord
Moyne in Cairo. Moyne, a known anti-Zionist, was in charge of carrying out the terms of the
1939 White Paper. The assassination turned Winston Churchill against the Zionists. The Jewish Agency and
Zionist Executive believed that British and world reaction to the assassination of Lord Moyne could jeopardize
cooperation after the war, that had been hinted at by the British, and might endanger the Jewish Yishuv if they came to
be perceived as enemies of Britain and the allies. Therefore they embarked on a campaign against the Lehi and Irgun,
known in Hebrew as the "Sezon" ("Season"). Members of the underground were to be ostracized. Leaders were caught by the
Hagannah, interrogated and sometimes tortured, and about a thousand persons were turned over to the British.

Following World War II, Britain continued to limit Jewish immigration to
Palestine. The Zionist factions united and conducted an underground war against the British, as well as applying
pressure on the British government through the United States. In June of 1947, the British rammed the Jewish illegal
immigrant ship Exodus (formerly "President Warfield") on the high seas. They towed it to Haifa where it was the subject
of extensive publicity, generating public sympathy for the Zionist cause. The passengers were eventually disembarked in
Hamburg. The incident set world, and particularly US, opinion against the British, and caused the British to intern
illegal immigrants thereafter in Cyprus, rather than attempting to return them to Europe. On November 29, 1947, the
United Nations voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Arabs did not accept the partition plan,
and a war broke out. The state of Israel was established on May 14, 1948. The civil war that took place beginning on
December 1, 1947, between Arab and Jewish Palestinians, and the subsequent invasion of the state of Israel by Arab
States on May 15 1948, shaped the ideological development of Zionism, and the conflict and propaganda surrounding the
Arab invasion of Israel and subsequent refusal to recognize the state, as well the Arab Palestinian refugee that
was created, shaped the perception of Zionism in the Arab world and in the West.
(See 1948 Israel War of Independence (1948 Arab-Israeli
war) Timeline (Chronology) and
Israel War of Independence)

Labor Zionism vs Revisionism - After independence, the Labor Zionist
movement became, for many years, the leading political force in Israel. Mapai (Miflegeth Poalei Eretz Yisrael - the
party of the workers of the land of Israel) party led by David Ben-Gurion and his successors held power
continuously until 1977. The Zionist movement had split when Jabotinsky led the revisionists out of the Zionist
organization in the 1930s. The Zionist executive was led by Labor Zionism under David Ben-Gurion. Revisionists and Labor
Zionists had separate underground armies. Revisionists and Labor Zionists cooperated against British after World
War II. However, the "Sezon" in 1944-45, the massacre perpetrated at Deir Yassin by the Revisionists in April
1948, and the subsequent sinking of the "Altalena" Irgun arms ship by the Israeli government, as well as numerous
smaller incidents, helped to deepen the split between mainstream Labor Zionism and Revisionist Zionism. Begin, the
leader of the Revisionist Zionists, was distrusted by Ben-Gurion and viewed a dangerous extremist. It was not until the6-day war in 1967 in 1967 that revisionists were allowed to participate in a government coalition.

David Ben-Gurion

Anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism is often defined as "opposition to the existence of Israel," but
that definition is a historical distortion and probably detracts from understanding the nature of anti-Zionism and its
diverse ideological roots. It is true that anti-Zionists are necessarily opposed to the existence of a Jewish state, but
it is not the essence of their ideology. Anti-Zionism existed long before there was a Jewish state and long before the
Zionist movement formally adopted the goal of founding an independent Jewish state in 1942. Anti-Zionists were and are
opposed to Zionism for a variety of reasons. Assimilationist Jews denied that there is a "Jewish people." Marxists
admitted that there is a separate Jewish group, but believed that it is undesirable to perpetuate its existence (see
Marxist anti-SemitismThe Jewish Bund and
Anti-Zionism ).

. Marx's
views of Judaism are more or less indistinguishable from those of anti-Semites. In "A World Without Jews," Marx wrote,

The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an
illusory bill of exchange.

The Jew is perpetually created by civil society from its own entrails.

The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of of the
merchant, of the man of money in general.

Contempt for theory, art, history, and for man as an end in himself,
which is contained in an abstract form in the Jewish religion

We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the
present time, an element which through historical development -- to which in this harmful respect the Jews have
zealously contributed.

Arab nationalists are anti-Zionists because Zionism conflicted with their
nationalism, though Feisal himself envisaged cooperation with the Zionists.

Zionism was popular among Jewish people as a
movement they might support with money or at political meetings. However, few, especially in Western countries, thought
of coming to Palestine or Israel until the latter decades of the twentieth century, except when in danger of
persecution. Palestine was too far, economically backward and dangerous to draw many immigrants. Nonetheless,
non-Zionist groups like Alliance Israelite Universelle and many others helped Zionist efforts in Palestine and
joined the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

Jews who sought to assimilate in their own countries claimed that they were loyal citizens of a different
faith, sometimes styling themselves "of the Mosaic persuasion" as did early reform Jews (see
Reform Jewish anti-Zionism )They felt that the Zionist movement and the concept of a
"Jewish People" would raise questions about their own loyalty, and they resented the fact that Zionists often spoke as
though they represented all Jews. This movement was particularly prevalent in Germany, where Jews were
staunch supporters of German nationalism. Valuable insight into the prevailing ideologies of the time can be gained from
Amos Elon's book, "The Pity of it All" (Henry Holt, 2002) which chronicles the tragic history of German Jewry. At
one point, the reform Jewish movement went so far as to systematically remove all references to the Holy Land and
Jerusalem from their liturgy. A large segment of ultraorthodox Jews were displeased by the secular ideas that dominated
Zionism, and insisted that the rebuilding of Israel must await the coming of the messiah. In Europe, the
agitation of assimilationist and ultraorthodox Jews helped to actively block Zionist rescue efforts in the 1930s, when
it began to be apparent that Nazism would soon make Europe very dangerous for Jews. Jewish communists were and are
opposed to Zionism because Marxism posited the disappearance of the Jews as a historic anomaly, once international
atheistic communism triumphed over nationalist particularism, and religion, the opium of the people, died out. In the
USSR, as part of his "nationalities" policy, which assimilated or murdered numerous national groups, Stalin tried to
handle the Jewish problem by creating an autonomous Jewish republic in the wastelands of Birobidjan. This project was
never supported very seriously and was later abandoned. Though the USSR supported the creation of the state of Israel,
Stalin was opposed to Zionism inside Russia and the USSR suppressed Zionist activities and at times persecuted Jews as
well as Zionists.

Most religious Jews and the reform movement, initially
anti-Zionist, reconciled themselves with Jewish state, after the Holocaust seemed to bear out the basic thesis
that Jews required a homeland of their own and would not necessarily be safe even in the best circumstances, and after
creation of Israel proved that Zionist aspirations could become a reality. Success has many fathers. Nonetheless, anti-Zionist ideologies and
their representatives persist among religious groups such as the ultraorthodox

This ideological opposition to Zionism later dovetailed
with the anti-Israel cold-war politics of the Soviet Union and the Arab antagonism to Israel, as well as with
anti-Semitism. Retrospectively, communist ideologues pegged Zionism as a colonialist ideology bent on exploiting and
dispossessing the native inhabitants of Palestine, and creating an apartheid colonialist fascist Jewish state. In 1975,
a pro-Soviet and pro-Arab majority in the UN passed General Assembly Resolution
3397, branding Zionism as racism. The resolution was repealed in
1991, but similar sentiments were repeated at a conference of non-government organizations in Durban, South Africa in
2001. The rationale for this idea is that Zionism is a colonialist movement that assumes that the racial
superiority of the Jews gives them the right to dispossess the Arabs of Palestine. However, Zionist ideology is not
based on racial notions and didn't assume superiority of the Jews. Zionist theorists assumed that the Jews are
socially inferior and "abnormal" because they did not have a national home. The "abnormal" Diaspora character of Jews
would be corrected when the people returned to their own land, realized their right to self-determination and renewed
their nation existence. Zionists believe that the Jewish right to the land is based on ancient historical links, not
racial superiority. Some Zionists see the Arabs as usurpers, just as the Arabs see the Zionists as usurpers. As the
conflict between Arab and Jew escalated, some Zionists favored voluntary or not so voluntary transfer to remove the
Arabs, and others seem to have thought the Arabs could be wished away. However, Zionism as an ideology did not
posit dispossession of the Arabs.

It is undeniable that early Zionist leaders used the language and rhetoric of
colonialism and established organizations with names like "The Jewish Colonial Trust." In part, this reflects the
influence of the 19th century European cultural milieu, when colonialism was a perfectly acceptable concept. In part, it
reflects efforts of Zionist leaders to sell leaders of the great powers on the idea of supporting a Jewish colonization
scheme that would support German or British or French interests in the Middle East. The Socialist-Zionist movement
certainly did not see themselves as colonialists and were opposed to colonialism and imperialism, nor did the USSR
originally oppose Zionism on the basis that it is a colonialist movement.

Anti-Semitic writers identify Zionism with the spurious program enunciated in
the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a nineteenth century forgery of the Russian secret police, and insist that
Zionists are intent on taking over the world.. A related notion, perhaps inspired by the writings of Najib Azouri, is
that Zionism insists on expanding the Jewish state to the borders promised in the Old Testament - the Nile and Tigris
Euphrates rivers. Though there are at present some religious and nationalist extremists in Israel who want such borders,
Zionism never had any such program. Early Zionists did not always envision a national home in the Middle East, and
"Palestine" did not exist as a political entity before 1922. The
map of Zionist borders presented by Zionists to the Paris conference in 1919 was somewhat larger than modern Israel.
It covered parts of what are now Jordan and Lebanon and Syria, ending just west of the Damascus-Hejaz railway. However,
this optimistic (from the Zionist point of view) proposal was a bargaining position, had little to do with biblical
promises, and did not reflect any deep seated ideology.

Zionism After the Establishment of the State of Israel

The Zionist organization has continued to function after the establishment of
the Jewish state. It has helped to bring millions of new immigrants to Israel, encourages the teaching of Hebrew and
Jewish culture abroad, lobbies for Israel with the US and other governments, and rallies support to Israel in times of
crisis. However, in Israel, "Zionism" became somewhat of a pejorative, associated with government propaganda,
super-patriotism and regimentation. The Labor Zionist movement, that had founded the state, eventually found itself in a
minority, replaced in large part by more militant religious Zionists and the Likud party, which inherited the mantle of
revisionism, carried on by a Begin after the death of Ze'ev Jabotinsky.

Zionism and the 6-day War- The 6-day war, which resulted
in a dramatic victory for Israel, had a profound affect on the attitude of
Jews in Israel and abroad to Zionism and Israel. The war and lightning victory taught many Arabs that Israel was here to
stay, and in fact, it did the same for Jews. In Israel, it lifted the populace out of the doldrums of economic
stagnation and frustration, and gave them renewed faith in the Zionist idea and the state. Abroad, the war had a more
profound effect. The United States and Canada held the largest concentration of Jews outside the USSR. The vast
majority of American Jews had looked upon Israel benignly and condescendingly as a refuge for persecuted Jews, and as a
charitable cause that they would support with the same feelings of superiority that they supported their less fortunate
relatives in Europe. Among secular American Jews, Zionism was regarded as the aberration of misfits and dreamers,
somewhat as it had been at the beginning of the twentieth century. The state of Israel, had after-all been founded and
Zionism had therefore "accomplished its purpose," they felt. They had seen the penniless immigrants, the wretched
of the earth, arriving in the displaced-persons refuge called Israel with their pitiful bundles and strange clothing,
coming off the gangplanks of ships in Haifa on newsreels. This was all very well for those poor unfortunates, who needed
a place to live, but surely, it could have nothing to do with them or their lives, living in the United States or Canada
and building their futures there. As an ideology, Zionism threatened their own sense of identity as Americans perhaps,
or even worse, threatened to take their sons and daughters to a far-away land.

The ultra-orthodox Hassidic Jews were opposed
to the Zionist state, or at best neutral. The focus of religious Zionism was the dovish Mizrachi movement, whose
representatives in the Israeli government, the National Religious Party (NRP) had opposed the war.All this changed
rapidly in June of 1967. Israel became a source of pride for most Jews. They all wanted to be partners in this
successful enterprise and to claim pride of ownership. Socialists came to volunteer in kibbutzim. Capitalists brought
investment capital. Willing donors were found for the beautification and revitalization of Jerusalem. The NRP began to
mobilize to settle and retain the conquered territories. Ultra-orthodox rabbis who did not recognize the Zionist state,
nonetheless issued injunctions against returning any part of the "liberated" "holy land."

Zionism and Occupation - For many people in Israel and abroad, "Zionism" came to imply support for the
settlement of Jews in the territories occupied by Israel in the 6-day war. It assumed a very negative
connotation for those who oppose the occupation. The word "Zionism" in the sense of support for settlers is used both by
right wing Zionist extremists, and by anti-Zionists. Right wing Zionist extremists insist that withdrawal from the
occupied territories will mean the "end of Zionism." Anti-Zionists insist that "expansionism" is part of Zionist
ideology. Historically, this view does not seem to have ideological support, since "Greater Israel" was the ideology of
the breakaway religious movement created after 1967, and was never the ideology of mainstream Zionism except perhaps for
a few decades following the Six Day war. Messianism was part of proto-Zionism, but the Zionist movement was pragmatic in
all that it said and did. Expansionism became popular as a result of historical accidents, and not because of ideology.
The territory that might be allotted to the Jewish state shrank during the British mandate, creating a sort of
irredentism. Rather than being friendly neighbors, it became apparent that the Arab countries would be hostile,
generating a desire for "strategic depth" to protect against invasion. It was easy for Israeli governments to say they
would return territories for peace, and at the same continue to build Greater Israel, since peace or anything
approaching it appeared to be a remote abstraction.

A part of the religious Zionist movement grafted itself on to the temporary
realities created after the 6 day war, and evolved a radical messianic ideology. They insisted that they, and only
they, represent the "real" Zionism. A quiet coup had transformed Zionism. Unfortunately, a considerable part of the world
took them at their word. The image of Zionism in the world was transformed from that of a progressive movement of
liberation to a movement of fanatics who wanted to create a religious state and disenfranchise a native population.

Disillusionment and Zionist Counter-Revolution

- However, the dream of Greater Israel collided with hard realities. If the conquered territories were kept, the Arabs of Palestine would soon be a majority
between the river and the sea, making a democratic Jewish state impossible. Tens of thousands of IDF soldiers were
needed to guard 8,000 settlers against Palestinian terrorism in Gaza. Israelis were confronted with images of Zionist
soldiers destroying houses, uprooting trees and killing children as "collateral damage." This was not the Zionism of the
school books. Messianism and wishful thinking aside, the state created by flesh and blood was faced with the facts of
Palestinian demography, military necessity, humanitarian values and international commitments.

The resolution of this conflict within
Zionism is unfolding before our eyes. It has created an earthquake in Israeli politics, splitting the ruling Likud
party, and it has generated a counter-revolution in Zionism that is overthrowing the coup of the Greater Israel
supporters. Israel withdrew from Gaza, but Zionism did not end. IDF and Israel police used force to destroy an illegal
outpost, but Zionism survived that too. The changes do not come without a price. A residue of the religious Zionist
movement have become embittered anti-Zionists who fight against the state. The transformation is not yet complete. (see
commentaries:
The
real self-hating Jews: the paradoxical tragedy of extremists and
Avram Burg on the
future of Religious Zionism )

Post-Zionism - Beginning in the 1980s, some Israeli historians and
sociologists began to question facts about the official history of Israel and Zionism, as well as the Zionist ideology.
They reasoned that Zionism had accomplished its purpose in creating the Jewish state, and that now it was time to move
on. They posited that Israel and the Zionists had a large share of the blame for the animosity between Jews and
Arabs, and had in fact, ignored the existence of the Arabs in Palestine and then dispossessed the Palestinians by force.
This reasoning was supported by new histories, that talked frankly about less savory aspects of Israeli history that had
been previously ignored. The new historians made a case that at least part of Zionism had always envisioned
expulsion or transfer of the Arabs, and described massacres and expulsions which took place in 1948, often claiming that
these were part of a deliberate policy. The historians claimed that these new facts were revealed by declassified
archives. In fact, the most important facts supposedly "revealed" by the new historians were known to all Israelis who
wanted to know them, though perhaps not in detail, and not presented in the particular way that new historians presented
them. Facts can be interpreted in different ways. The ideas behind the facts, called by some "post-Zionism," do not necessarily form a coherent ideology and their
practitioners do not generally see themselves as members of a movement or followers of a distinct philosophy. Some
"post-Zionists" like Ilan Pappe are indistinguishable from anti-Zionists, while others, like Benny Morris, use the same
facts to arrive at very different conclusions that might support a militant Zionist ideology. Post-Zionism
attained a wide popularity for a while, but fell into eclipse after peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israel
failed and violence flared up in September of 2000.

1942: The Biltmore Program - The 1939
British White Paper had closed Palestine to Jewish immigration, trapping millions of Jews in Nazi occupied Europe.
Zionist leaders met in the Biltmore Hotel in New York, and declared their support for a Jewish Commonwealth and renewed
immigration, in open defiance of the British mandatory authorities.

1923:
Vladimir Jabotinsky: The Iron Wall - This essay was published by the head of the Zionist Revisionist movement,
Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky in 1923. In reaction to riots that had occurred in 1920 and 1921. It called for an
independent, legal Jewish defense force, a Jewish Legion in Palestine, which Jabotinsky referred to as an "Iron Wall."

1919: Statement of the Zionist Organization to the Paris Peace
Conference - The Zionist organization presented this statement at the Paris peace conference, outlining the Zionist
position regarding Palestine, and supporting the British proposal for a mandate that would create a Jewish national
home, in line with the Balfour Declaration . The statement
provides a great deal of background regarding the position of various Zionist groups and foreign governments, and gives
proposed borders for the Palestine mandate as well as proposals for organization of the Palestine government.

1917: Balfour Declaration - The "letter" from Lord Balfour to Lord
Rothschild, declaring that the British government "view with favor" the establishment of a Jewish National Home in
Palestine. This was to be the basis of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, granted to Great Britain.

1897: Program of the First Zionist
Congress - Theodore Herzl organized the first Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland in 1897. Prior to the Congress,
Zionist activities had been initiated by several different groups such as Hovevei Zion (lovers of Zion) with no
central direction or political program. The Basle Congress was the foundation of a mass Zionist movement.

1896:
The Jewish State, by Theodore Herzl - This book became, essentially, the program of the Zionist movement and the
embodiment of its common ideology. Complete downloadable source, with a historical preface.

1799 -
Napoleon's Proclamation of a Jewish State - In this stillborn proclamation, Napoleon offered the Jews a state in
Palestine under French protection. This was the first of many such nineteenth century projects for restoration of the
Jews in Palestine.